Friday's Pick: Cannons & Clouds, Winfred E. Eye, and By Sunlight

Now a sextet with a full-time harpist, this San Francisco band specializes in smartly designed folk-pop, with influences like Red House Painters, Elliott Smith, and Pedro the Lion offering a good idea of what to expect. Tonight's show at Bottom of the Hill is the release party for After All, which is on the fledgling Los Gatos label Side with Us. It includes all of the bells and whistles that the original duo set out to document, and the passionate recording is complemented by equally intense words. "Lyrically, it's a rather candid, brutally honest chronicle of a few years in Zach's life," Kane says. "Jack London's novella To Build a Fire was a minor inspiration, too, as Zach and I found that there was a striking metaphorical parallel between the protagonist's struggle/journey and his own." And picking up where they left off three years ago, Cannons & Clouds have already written the follow-up to After All.